In my last article, I advocated for the use of social research in understanding the complexities of the social world.
Here, I illustrate how this can be done by unpacking the hotly contested example of sex work.
Even the terminology used to describe this example is loaded with meaning and complexity. While some prefer to use the term ‘prostitution’, I use the term ‘sex work’, to recognise commercial sex practices as legitimate work, thereby fostering a sense of agency and dignity for those involved in it, rather than deviance and criminality.
However, it could also be argued that the term ‘sex work’ denotes too much agency in cases where individuals are trafficked into the business. Generally speaking, agency is a hot topic in debates surrounding sex work, which is described in more detail below.
Understanding decency and deviance
Often concentrated in city centres, sex work is at the heart of urban debate. Despite its decriminalisation in many places around the world, it remains a stigmatised activity characterised by deviance and disease. Thus, sex work raises questions surrounding criminality and acceptability, making it a fascinating case study in crime and justice studies.
Two feminist accounts dominate contemporary debate. The first is that women make an informed choice to enter sex work. The second is that women are pushed into sex work by forces beyond their control in a male-oriented society.
These accounts are important to consider, because they demonstrate 1) a complex relationship between individuals and the social world, 2) differences in research questions that may be asked and 3) how different policy routes can emerge from similar (feminist) roots.
Formally speaking, laws lay out what is or is not permissible in a given society. Informally, though, social norms and moral judgements play a significant role in deciding what is decent or deviant.
Thus, notions of antisocial behaviour are not one-size-fits-all. Who and what actions are considered ‘criminal’ or ‘deviant’ are shaped by social values that influence the law, as well as laws that influence social values.
Amplifying sex workers’ voices through research
Power plays a role in the stories that are told. Social research should make spaces for voices and experiences of people that may otherwise go unheard or silenced. It should also seek to understand the spaces used by those marginalised people.
These twin aims can be tackled in social research through mobile interviews. Mobile interviews, or interviews ‘on-the-go’, help researchers attempt to understand the lived experiences of participants by walking alongside them through specific areas. They allow researchers to ask questions while immersing themselves in the space that participants occupy.
This method is useful in sex work research, because sex workers are mobile populations (as are homeless and drug-involved individuals). Interviewing them on-the-go means they are not confined to a stuffy interview room and they may be more willing to make the time for interviews between their appointments. They also may be willing to share more intimate details of their work experiences because the pressure of a formal interview setting is removed.
Especially when speaking to difficult-to-access groups, mobile interviews open doors to topics, body language and experiences that may otherwise go overlooked by researchers. Mobile interviews thus offer a more accurate lens into participants’ social worlds which is beneficial when it comes time to interpret data. This is because mobile interviews help treat participants as the knowledgeable subject (as opposed to the researcher) by letting them take the lead around a space, rather than the researcher dominating the physical and metaphorical direction of conversation. As a result, mobile interviews can help amplify marginalised communities’ voices.
Policy for whom?
One of the challenges of research is knowing how to use it. It has the ability to influence policy, but the question arises: policy for whom?
In England and Wales, sex work is legal. However, policy may be geared towards protecting the public or protecting the rights of sex workers.
As previously mentioned, different accounts of sex work are important to consider because they lead to differences in the research questions that may be asked. In turn, the knowledge produced by social research will have different policy implications.
The example of sex work thus illustrates the complexity of the social world and research that aims to understand it. It asks one to consider who makes laws, who breaks laws, and who/what is at stake in laws.
Katelyn Owens is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Kent, studying the impact of gentrification on the sexual geographies of King’s Cross in London and Pigalle in Paris.
This is the second of two articles. The first argued that social research plays a crucial role in examining the complex relationship between people and things in the social world.
